


for the error bred in the bone

by indigostohelit



Category: The Great (TV 2020)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Desk Sex, F/M, First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Married Couple, Royalty, Unhealthy Relationships, unethical polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/pseuds/indigostohelit
Summary: “Christ, Catherine has bored her way into your skull,” says Peter. “Don't worry; we won't talk of it. We'll go hunting tomorrow, you and I. Kill some fucking animals. That always settles your stomach, hmm?” He flops an arm over Grigor's chest and plants a hot, damp kiss on his cheek. “Bring your wife a dead rabbit, Grigor Fyodorovich. Fuck her after. Quickens the blood.”Grigor grunts. The Emperor's arm is pressing into his throat. On the other side of Grigor's body, his fingers are brushing, just slightly, against Georgina's lower lip.
Relationships: Georgina Dymov/Pyotr III Fyodorovich | Peter III of Russia, Grigor Dymov/Georgina Dymov, Grigor Dymov/Pyotr III Fyodorovich | Peter III of Russia
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	for the error bred in the bone

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for misogynist and homophobic slurs. Spoilers for Episode 5. Title from Auden. Georgina's diminutive is the diminutive of Georgiy, for lack of other options; since Peter in this canon is presumably Peter Petrovich, I've given Grigor the real Peter's patronymic, for gay reasons.

Grigor has decided that—Grigor has come to a decision. Grigor has thought about it. Extensively, he's thought about it. Over hours he's thought about it. Minutes. He has introspected, and he has deliberated, and he has speculated—

“'s illegal,” Peter points out.

“Right,” says Grigor. “Haven't speculated. I've—celebrated. Cerebrated. I've decided.” He pauses, for effect, and to rest his neck on the Emperor's wonderful pillow. God, that's soft. Peter has the best of everything. Which is correct.

“I've decided,” he says. “I don't like Dom Perignon.”

“ _No,”_ says Peter.

“Yes,” says Grigor. “Don't like—fancy wine. Don't know why it's meant to be better because it goes up your nose.”

“Fucking rude,” says Peter. “I spent, I spent _all_ your tax money on it. Fucking ungrateful is what it is. How do you not like fancy _wine?_ Everyone likes fancy wine. You've got—oodles of money.”

“I've got,” says Grigor, and rolls his head deliberately and carefully to the left, where Peter isn't. In the blunt checkered glasslight from the window, George Dymov is less skin than shadow. One of her curls is fallen over her temple, across the cool white curve of her cheek. Her mouth is fallen a little open. She married him, once, on purpose.

“Vodka,” he says. “Vodka's better. Fucking—clean. Goes to your chest, right? None of the fucking—” He gestures in the air, meaning to encompass tall glasses, and the concept of France, and all operations occurring within his skull. “The fucking _fruit_. And you can't drink it in the bath.”

“You can drink it in the bath,” says Peter. “A big fucking bathtub. Goes with the bubbles.”

“ _Real_ bath,” says Grigor. “Benches.”

“Huh,” says Peter, and considers this. “Grigor,” he says, “when's the last time we had a bath together? A real bath.” He turns his head, so that his chin is not quite propped against Grigor's shoulder. “Benches.”

 _“Huh,”_ Grigor says. “Wow. Not since, er. A while. Catherine.”

“Oh, fuck,” says Peter, and kind of breathes against his neck for a while. “She really fucking, huh. She gets inside your head. Doesn't she.”

Grigor grunts. In his experience, Catherine doesn't. In his experience, Catherine doesn't even get inside your bed. On the other hand, he's never wanted her to. Peter certainly has the right to feel differently. Peter has the right to feel whatever he likes. Peter—

“Like the,” he says, “the Dom Perignon.”

Peter snorts. “Fuck,” he says. “Yes. _Right_ up your nose.”

Grigor laughs, more breath than anything, and closes his eyes. Just to rest them. He'll open them in a minute. The darkness in the Emperor's room feels different than the darkness elsewhere, he thinks; heavier. It makes you afraid to move. He can count the slow movements of George's breath, how they shift the covers. It might almost be his own bedchamber. It might be their own bed.

“I should fuck her mouth in the morning,” says Peter, a little muffled.

Grigor's eyes fly open.

“The Empress?” he says.

“Funny,” says Peter warmly, and rolls onto his back. “You know, I never _have_ fucked Catherine's mouth. Isn't that strange? Once I get an heir on her I suppose it'll be different.” He shifts a little on the pillow. “I wonder if Leo has ever done it. Do you think he has? Does he know you can?”

Grigor stares at the pattern of rafters. He feels, though he knows he is not, very sober.

“Would it make you angry,” he says, “if it had?”

“Would it make me _angry?”_ says Peter. “Good God, why should it?”

“Couldn't say,” says Grigor. “But you don't—” Something's caught in his throat. He coughs, and coughs again. “Do you—think on him? Often?”

“Never,” says Peter. “Why? Should I?” He laughs. “Would you?”

“'Course not. No,” says Grigor, and turns his face away, towards the window and the sleeping body. “No more than reason.”

There is a brief silence. Then Peter says, “You're perturbed.”

“I'm not,” says Grigor.

“You are,” says Peter. “You're perturbed by the—the subject. Grigor, that's _hilarious,_ I never thought you had any bishop in you. Have I disturbed your moral sensibilities? That's got to be some fault of my wife's, I'm sure you never had any before.”

“I am not perturbed,” says Grigor. “I'm drunk.”

“All right, deny it,” says Peter. “You're stiff as a board. With fright, I mean. It's embarrassing, really. Madame Svenska would be rolling on the floor if she heard. You _are_ lucky I love you.”

“I've heard—” Grigor says, over his last words, and then stops. He begins again. “I've heard—they try to do it—ethically. In France—”

“Christ, Catherine _has_ bored her way into your skull,” says Peter. “Don't worry; we won't talk of it. We'll go hunting tomorrow, you and I. Kill some fucking animals. That always settles your stomach, hmm?” He flops an arm over Grigor's chest and plants a hot, damp kiss on his cheek. “Bring your wife a dead rabbit, Grigor Fyodorovich. Fuck her after. Quickens the blood.”

Grigor grunts. The Emperor's arm is pressing into his throat. On the other side of Grigor's body, his fingers are brushing, just slightly, against Georgina's lower lip.

He wakes in the morning with a splitting headache, and an unpleasant stale smell to his dayclothes. To his right, the Emperor is gone, and George is at the table mirror, brushing something onto her forehead.

She sees him wake—he sees her see it—and smiles at him, in the mirror. “You ought to sleep in more often,” she says. “It makes you look rougher.”

“Most people say softer,” he says. His voice scrapes against his throat, but not unpleasantly so.

“That seems likely for most people,” she says, “Come here and help me with my powders.”

He goes. George has a cushioned stool to sit on, but nothing for him; he curls over himself, over the straight-backed smallness of her body, to smear the vermillion cream with one calloused thumb very carefully across the swell of her lip.

There is an army of little boxes and bottles arranged before the mirror on the table. “You keep them here,” he says. “For mornings. In a desk drawer?”

“Yes,” says George; he can feel the _s_ at the edge of his fingernail.

“All right,” says Grigor, and gently withdraws his thumb.

George twists to rummage among the bottles. “Usually,” she says, without looking at him, “I have the maid help with it.”

“Do you?” says Grigor. His back is beginning to ache.

She lifts one, discards it, and lifts another. In the curve of the mirror, he can't quite catch her eye. He looks at the soft place by her ear, just behind her jaw, and says, “Would you like me to say thank you?”

Georgina pauses.

“The powder is full of lead,” she says. “I'd really rather you didn't put it in the Emperor's fish tonight.”

Grigor breathes in, out. Then he goes to his knees in front of her, and sets his elbows on her thighs, and props his chin on his hands and looks up at the long pale line of her neck.

“So we're talking about it,” he says.

She sets down the bottle. “If we have to.”

“Do we have to?” he says. “Goshenka—”

“ _Don't,”_ she says.

He bites his tongue, and sits back on his heels. “He bruised you," he says roughly.

Her mouth is a small, flat slash of red in the paleness of the powder. “Grigor,” she says, “nobody can do this for you. Do you know that?”

He looks down. Her skirts are spread over her lap, but he can see it, nevertheless, the little dip in the fabric where her thighs meet. Not immodest, her skirt; it's only that he's looking.

“Did he do the same for you?” he says. “This morning. Did he return the favor?”

She looks down at him, at last. _“I_ can't do it for you,” she says. “And if I could—”

“I know,” says Grigor. He knows. She wouldn't.

But he's looking, anyway. He could do that, too, if she would let him. He could do it well. He could put his lips where the Emperor's were an hour ago, and see if Peter has left a mark.

He shoots three rabbits, a goat, and a hazel grouse. “Grigor, you're bloodthirsty today,” says Peter admiringly. “Should we send you out to fight the Swedes?”

“I serve at the Emperor's pleasure,” says Grigor, and listens to Peter laugh. “Rather you didn't,” he adds, “if it's all the same.”

They take the game and the dogs and bring them to the palace, and discard them there for the servants. Peter pauses briefly to rub at the ears of a long-snouted whuffling female, with a coat like dirty snow. “I like that one,” he says. “Reminds me of the wife.”

“How could it—oh,” says Grigor. “You mean blonde.”

“A _bitch,”_ says Peter. “My God, you're slow on the uptake. Are you still hungover?”

Grigor considers the easy out. “Yes,” he says, eventually. “I thought you and Catherine were become friends these days.”

“Oh, we are,” says Peter absently. “Go on.” He shoves the dog towards one of the servants, and she trots away, snuffling. “Come into the next room with me. I want to clean my own gun.”

There's a scattering of tables in the room, with the poles and brushes and oils for the purpose, and a great grey-jowled bear's head with jet for eyes staring down at them. Peter sits at the desk, tossing his wig aside, and begins busily to unscrew the lock plate; Grigor climbs on one of the tables in the corner, across from the bear, and stares back.

“My father,” says Peter, after a while. “I'm surprised you don't remember, I thought you were there.”

“What?” says Grigor.

“The bear,” Peter says. “My father. He shot him. You were wondering.”

“Oh,” says Grigor. He hadn't been. “I remember now. My tenth birthday. You fell down.”

“Right into the blackberry bush,” Peter agrees, dreamily. “Aunt Elizabeth spent ages picking all the little brambles out. She gave up, in the end, some of them are still in there.”

“They aren't,” says Grigor.

Peter's hand hesitates over the gun oil; he turns to squint up at Grigor. “You're contradicting me?”

“No!” says Grigor. “Well. Your aunt handed me over to you. I went at them—” He tries to gesture, and fails. “Your mother lent me—this little fruit knife.”

“I think I'd remember that,” Peter says, laughing.

“The Empress had gotten all of the thorns in your legs,” Grigor says. “But they were still stuck in your hands. I—” He turns his own palms over, and looks at them, the scars and the callouses. They'd been soft, then. Peter's, too. “I had to do it by firelight. It took hours. We must have been awake until two in the morning.”

Peter is looking at him open-mouthed. “That can't be right,” he says. “Until two in the morning? I wouldn't have let you. Why didn't my aunt just make one of the servants do it? It sounds unbearable.”

Grigor turns his hands back again, and rests them on his legs. “Plenty of things are unbearable,” he says, “until you bear them.”

“Aren't you full of wisdom,” says Peter. “Dissolve the council. We'll make you Empress.” Grigor laughs, and Peter smiles at him, and says, “Why not? Parties every night.”

“We do that already,” says Grigor.

“You _are_ contradicting me,” says Peter. “Fine. Better parties. Better food. Better wine.”

“Better vodka,” says Grigor meditatively. “Better entertainment.”

“Better fucking,” says Peter. “No insult meant, of course, your wife is already the best fuck in Russia. Do you remember, last night, when she got me on my back and put her tongue—”

“I remember,” says Grigor shortly. He doesn't mean to say it shortly.

Peter narrows his eyes a little. “Amazing,” he says. “How does she do it? A priest would be hard-put to give her up. Well! Lucky for you and I we're not priests.” He pauses. “Shall we do it again tonight?”

Grigor does not reply. Peter looks up at him. His eyes are quite cool.

“Shall we do it again tonight?” he repeats.

“You can do as you like,” says Grigor. “You are the Emperor.”

“And you love me,” says Peter.

“And I love you,” says Grigor. “Yes.”

“Excellent,” says Peter. “I am the Emperor, and you love me, and I can do as I like. And what if what I like is talking to you about how I fucked your wife last night?”

Grigor says nothing.

“What if I asked?” says Peter. “What if I said—Grigor, we can speak of it, or we can not speak of it. Which would you choose?”

“Don't speak of it,” says Grigor, immediately, and regrets it.

“But I am the Emperor,” says Peter, “and you love me.” He's not quite smiling. “Do you want to know what we did, this morning? It's so funny you should have slept through it, Grigor. You know, honestly, I'm amazed she could sit down at all, because I turned her round and stuck—”

“Stop,” says Grigor, “fucking _talking.”_

Peter stares.

“I'm sorry,” Grigor says, at once. “I'm hungover. I shouldn't have gone hunting. I'll go.”

“You aren't sorry,” says Peter. “Why aren't you?”

Grigor says nothing. Peter's insight is sputtering at the best of times; it's only ever Grigor's luck that gives it to him.

“This is astonishing,” says Peter. He doesn't sound angry, just bewildered. “You're acting a jealous fishwife. I've never seen you like this before.”

“If my presence offends the Emperor,” says Grigor, with great effort, “I will remove it.”

“Fuck off, I'm not _offended_ by you,” says Peter. “It's offensive that you're offended by _me_. Grigor, since when do I offend you?”

“You don't,” says Grigor.

“Defensive!” says Peter. “Grigor, since when do you _lie?_ You are full of fucking surprises today.” He grimaces in mild surprise, and bends back to his rifle and cleaning cloth. “If I didn't know better,” he says, “I'd think you were jealous of _her.”_

“What?” says Grigor.

Peter stops. “Good God,” he says. “Are you?”

“What,” says Grigor.

Peter sets down the rifle and squints at him. Grigor isn't certain he's ever seen this expression on his face before. “I never would have thought it,” he says. “You didn't seem like the type. Unless—you don't want to be the one fucking _me,_ do you?”

 _“What?”_ says Grigor.

“Not that your—isn't—nice,” says Peter, and gestures, demonstratively. “Very nice, actually. I don't suppose—but it's the idea of the thing, really; my reputation— _do_ you want to? Will you be very disappointed?”

“Wh,” says Grigor, before his mouth elbows itself ahead of his brain at last, and manages, “No. No. No, not—no.”

“Excellent,” says Peter. “I do hate to disappoint you. Drop your pants.”

Grigor is not a man built for machinations. He is a hunter, and a would-be murderer, and a survivor _par excellence_ , and a true and loyal friend; he is not, precisely, a strategist. Like his dearest friend—like the Empress's fucking bear—like, when all is said and done, his sly and stubborn and lovely and godforsaken and adulterous and beloved country—he is less a political animal than an animal sunk in politics to his neck. He speaks from the heart. He speaks, when necessary, with a gun. He trusts his wife, and when his wife is absent, he trusts his instinct. It is base, as the Church may say; but it is his own.

But he has not gotten this far in the Emperor's court, or in his esteem, by differentiating base instinct from obedience.

His hands go to the lacing of his breeches. The Emperor is watching them.

He hesitates. Peter's eyes flicker up, and narrow. “Go on,” he says.

“Er,” says Grigor.

“Have I read you wrong?” says Peter.

“No,” says Grigor, automatic again. “No, I—no.” His fingers move, unconscious. His breeches fall. He steps out of them; Peter is standing, slowly, pushing his chair back, his head cocked a little to the side, his face curiously dark without the paleness of his wig. At his neck, Grigor can see the blue mark where the vein rises. It is only as he lifts his hand to touch it that it occurs to him that it might have been a genuine question.

“We should tell,” he says, hoarsely, “we should tell George.”

Peter's eyebrows go up. “Well, I suppose,” he says.

Grigor breathes in, out. The Emperor's face is an inch from his. The Emperor's throat is under his hand.

He has kissed Peter in friendship, before. In council; at the hunt; in the gardens, under the shivering birch leaves, in the spring. He knows Peter's breathing, his heartbeat, the shape of his shoulders and skull. He knows the smell of sweat at Peter's neck. He knows its taste. He knows how Peter moves; he knows how Peter is still. He knows all the smallness in him.

Peter sighs into his mouth, a little. He's not sure if Peter even knows how to kiss slowly; all he's seen Peter do has been rapid, frantic or routine as the occasion presents itself, and always with all habitual tendernesses discarded in the name of disinterest, or dislike, or disdain for peasant sensibility. It's no matter. Grigor will teach him. Grigor knows. He cups the side of Peter's face and slows him down, slows the movement of his mouth, the rhythm of him, pulls Peter against his body, into himself.

Peter pulls back, after a while. “Grigor!” he says. “I never thought you had it in you. Is this how you are with George all the time?”

Grigor's ears are ringing, faintly. “Peter,” he says, or thinks he says. “Don't—if you're going to. Please.”

 _“And_ impatient,” says Peter. “What a font of surprises. I might have to steal you permanently.”

Grigor briefly whites out.

When he comes to, Peter's back is against the desk, and his shirt is open. He's spread his legs; Grigor's thigh is between them, riding up. Peter is—rutting, openmouthed, his eyes delighted. Grigor can't help himself, has to bite Peter's lip, his neck, has to work the skin there until Peter is making low pained noises into his ear. He's never made Peter sound like that before. He's only ever heard Peter sound like that before when Georgina—He kisses Peter again, hungry, and then kisses him once more, and then once more one more time, half a dozen kisses, a flurry of them. He wants to keep kissing Peter. He doesn't want to stop kissing him.

“Yes,” says Peter, eventually, “yes, all right, I get it, only—” and pushes him away, not unkindly. “You go and bend over the desk, thanks. And hand me the grease bottle.”

Grigor looks at the grease bottle, and then back to Peter. He can't quite seem to think.

“Oh,” says Peter, misreading his face, “don't worry, Archie told me how to do it. It's the seal of confession, if you ask him if he's a sodomite he legally has to tell you. Go on, get up against the desk.”

Grigor is hesitating, still. “Is,” he says; his voice is surprisingly hoarse. “Do we have to do it—that way?”

“Grigor, I've explained, you can't do it the other way round, I'm the Emperor of Russia,” says Peter. “Unless—I mean, you're clever, I'm sure you can think of some kind of argument for it. Do you want to persuade me? Go on, persuade me. I'll let you.”

Grigor does not feel very clever right now. He presses his forehead to the joining of Peter's shoulder and neck, warm and damp, and tries to catch his breath. “No,” he says, when he has words again, “I mean.” His voice catches, for a moment. “What you said—last night. If you wanted.”

“What I—oh,” says Peter. “Are you sure? That could get messy.”

Not trusting himself to speak, Grigor nods. He can hear it when Peter swallows. “All right, then,” he says. “If you're sure. Go on.”

The curve of Peter's jaw. The lacing of Peter's breeches. His eyes are so wide. Grigor goes to his knees.

Peter was right: it is messy, at first. Difficult, too; Grigor has to pause every minute or so to suck in a breath, and to relax his jaw better, and finally to rely on his hands and spit. But Peter is—patient, bewilderingly patient, waits while he fumbles and begins again and finally falls into a rhythm, steady and sloppy. Peter's hands are in his hair, not pulling, not really, just—curled against his scalp. Touching the nape of his neck, the curve of his ear. Touching him.

His eyes have fallen closed. He opens them, and blinks up at Peter. The ringing in his ears is gone; everything has become startlingly clear, swollen larger than itself, like he's on the inside of a drop of water. He feels slow, a little. Dream-like. Peter looks no better, above him, staring down. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his eyes blown black.

He tugs at Grigor's hair, a little. Grigor groans, without meaning to, and lets his eyes close again.

It's some time before he becomes aware of how hard he is. Once he's noticed, though, it's all he can think of; his cock is almost painful. Distracting him. There's no way to communicate it with a look; he pulls his head back and says, surprised at his own raspiness, “I'm going to—”

“Oh,” says Peter, sounding nearly as hoarse. “Yes. Go ahead.”

Grigor bends again to his task, one-handed now, and with the other reaches down. He has to go slowly—lightly. It's too good. He groans again, and Peter's hips jerk: “Fuck,” he says. “Grigor, you're too—just let me, will you? Can I?”

 _Can_ he? Grigor doesn't have words. He stares up at him, and Peter swears under his breath and begins to thrust into Grigor's mouth, almost carefully at first, and then faster. Grigor tries to relax his throat, tries not to choke. George never chokes. George would know how to do this; she has practice. If he wanted to learn—if he asked—

He comes, without meaning to, in hard pulses over his own chest. Peter says, _“Fuck,”_ and thrusts twice more, and then his come is filling Grigor's mouth; Grigor does almost choke, then, and swallows as best he can, and slides sideways against Peter's chair.

Peter collapses next to him. “Wow,” he says. “Well. My hangover's gone.”

Grigor says nothing. He feels as empty as a broken glass of wine.

“If this is how you are against a desk,” says Peter dreamily, “think about how fucking excellent it'll be in bed. Wait 'til we tell George.”

Grigor exhales.

“Don't tell George,” he says.

“What?” says Peter. “Why on Earth not?”

Grigor looks over at him, at the shark-black dreaminess of Peter's eyes. Peter's hand is resting, very absently, on the back of his neck. Peter could press down. Peter could bruise. Grigor tried to kill him for that, once; on purpose.

“Later,” he says. “We'll do it later. Only—not right now.”

Peter makes an uncertain noise. Grigor can feel it against his shoulder, in Peter's ribs, where his bones are pressed to the Emperor's bones. He waits for an answer.


End file.
